Vintage Nonsports Auction #4 Results

Thanks for the support on the auctions……I’ve been fortunate to bring to auction a number of really tough cards and Auction #4 was no exception. Thanks to some fantastic consignors, who I immensely appreciate, the following nonsports types brought what I would consider to be above market prices.

Auction #4
N64 A&G Virginia Brights “Girls & Children” Type $127.33
N198 Kimball Tobacco “Women’s Portraits” Type Card $319.00
N284 Buchner Gold Coin Actor Charles Coghlan PSA7 $259.42
N287 Buchner Gold Coin New York Scenes – Grand Central $395.08
N316 Mayo Cut Plug Actress Type $263.32
N324 S F Hess Terms of Poker – Two Fives $285.60
N384-1 Spaulding & Merrick Echo Tobacco “Actresses” Type $178.64
N394 Admiral Tobacco Sights and Scenes – Chicago Exposition $410.64
N557 Little Rhody Cut Plug National Sports – England $193.97
N567 Newsboy Cabinet #204 San Francisco, USN $267.75
N567 Newsboy Cabinet #205 City Hall $285.60
T2 Actress (Egyptian Girls) Cabinet Card $188.02
T10 Cabinet Theatrical Series Grace George Type $1071.00
T139 Hoffman House “Renowned Paintings” Type $180.88
R210 Trio Gum Harry S Truman $1370.88
R722-10 Leader Novelty Full Box – King Arthur’s Knights #6 $2499.00

Tough “N”, “T” and “R” type cards seem to be on fire with multiple bidders on each. This bodes well for the market for sure. In addition higher grade cards from the mainstream collectible sets from A&G, Buchner and others seem to be doing well as the search for high grade registry copies intensifies. Some PSA 6-7-8 prices of collectible sets from the January auction include:

N3 A&G Arms of all Nations Cannon PSA8 $730.80
N3 A&G Arms Lot of (3) PSA7 Cards $1089.24
N3 A&G Arms Lot of 6) PSA6 Cards $952.36
N9 A&G Flags Lot of (2) PSA7 Cards $278.40
N12 A&G Fruits Lot of (3) PSA7 Cards $737.76

The auction also saw a first foray into sports cards with a group of all (10) of the N28 Allen & Ginter World’s Champions baseball cards. The (10) cards are some of the most popular cards in the baseball genre and widely collected. The group of (10) cards were graded by SGC with grades ranging from SGC1 to SGC7. The group of (10) cards brought a total of $7749.28 with the Mike “King” Kelly card, graded SGC7 at $2570.40 and the Adrian “Cap” Anson SGC3 at $1755.25.

The next auction will be in May 2020 and we look forward to another group of fantastic type cards and other oddball items. We are always accepting consignments for the auction. Thank again to all bidders and consignors!

Some pictures of great types from the auction:



2019 National Convention Roundup – Chicago

Here’s some notes from the National………

I should have updated on a daily basis but just didn’t get ‘er done……….

IMG_9603.jpg
IMG_9604.jpg

Big highlight for me was getting Dan’s 1932 U.S. Caramel Presidents Cancelled set with McKinley graded by SGC.  The grading companies have gone to a system where they’re getting more and more of the pie on higher dollar cards.  Although it takes just a little longer for review probably, grading a $20,000 card, now costs $1500 at the show.  A $100 value card cost $35 to get graded.  Kind of crazy.  With the punches, the McKinley graded a SGC20 or “1”. The rest of the cards graded SGC30 or “2” with the backstamps

Stayed at the Hyatt next door.  Nice in that it’s walking distance and didn’t have to get the car out and drive to the $30/day parking area…..

58619941158__26AA1AAB-53A4-40B9-AEFE-BF46C5FEA88E.jpg

 The show was at the Donald Stephens Convention Center…..home to a number of Nationals over the last 20 years……….

IMG_9613.jpg

The Chicago location is one of our favorites because right across the street is Gibson’s steak house and you can scoot over there for lunch and for $14 get a great burger and fries or (3) Filet Mignon sliders and fries.  A crappy hot dog, chips and coke in the show is about $12.00.  So a no brainer.

The show seems to offer less and less to collectors of nonsports.  There are fewer and fewer dealers with nonsports cards and what the bulk of them have is mostly 1950’s and 1960’s Topps, Bowman and other cards.  A few dealers had older stuff including Steve Sabow:

IMG_9593.jpg

Terry Knouse

IMG_9624.jpg
IMG_9625.jpg
IMG_9627.jpg
IMG_9628.jpg
IMG_9629.jpg

Some cool wax packs at one guys table:

IMG_9598.jpg
IMG_9599.jpg
IMG_9600.jpg

Wax was VERY popular around for sports and nonsports……..BBCE is the ‘authenticator’ of wax and they had a ton of Garbage Pail and Star Wars wax……..

IMG_9580.jpg
IMG_9581.jpg

BREAKING wax is now a HUGE HUGE thing.  They have a separate pavillion where people do group breaks and vlog (like a written blog but it’s video……for those who didn’t know what VLOG was…..like I didn’t really) the results.  People buy into a group break and buy a team or some piece of the action in some capacity.  

IMG_9582.jpg
IMG_9583.jpg

Some sports notes too……….

This guy, Tim Carroll does artwork creating cards FROM cards………this picture of the 1953 Topps Satchell Paige card was created from other cards that he cuts and uses to craft the original card.  Taking a view from farther out, it looks like neat artwork but closer up, you can see how the cards are cut to make the final product.  Incredibly cool stuff.

IMG_9630.jpg
IMG_9631.jpg
IMG_9632.jpg

Some Great graded sports packs (and a HOW Pack at Leland’s)

IMG_9595.jpg
IMG_9596.jpg

An incredible Ruth and Gehrig Exhibit collection to be sold at Hunts…………

IMG_9597.jpg

Great T206 album with cards glued in…………..

IMG_9619.jpg

All in all it was a good National Convention. Got to see a number of message board participants including Marty Krim and his amazing wife Debby, Tom Ryan, Daniel Hollandbeck and others I’m probably missing. Next year’s National is in Atlantic City. Should be interesting………

Auction…..Part Deux

Whew. Auction 2 concluded on 6/26 and I’ve been feverishly trying to get items picked, packed and posted. The 3 P’s. I told someone today, I’ve worked at UPS for 34 years, owned a The UPS Store franchise for 3 years and shipped 10’s of thousands of eBay items since 1995 but the auction business is so totally different. Most of the eBay sales are 1-2-3 items that are like-sized and all together and inventory management isn’t a tough proposition. With this auction, especially, I had many many more odd-sized items and large display items and getting them pulled and sizing packing needs has been a challenge. I’d say I’m about 85-90% complete. Still waiting on a few payments too.

I sincerely appreciate everyone’s involvement in the Auction–Consignors, Bidders, Advice givers, everyone. This auction had about 150 items more than last auction and about 100 more items in total that sold than the last auction. Dollar amount was up about 10% over last auction, total bids placed were up about 25% and registered users about a same amount.

The October auction will be our third and final installment for 2019 and will run from 10/17-10/27. Hopefully the Sunday evening 8pm closing time worked a little better than the previous auction.

I’m accepting consignments for the October and future auctions now. The October auction will feature prominently a complete cancelled 1932-3 U.S. Caramel Presidents set of 31 cards INCLUDING the ultra-rare William McKinley card. The cards will be graded by SGC at the National in Chicago in early August.

In addition, 1930’s complete sets for the auction will include complete sets of higher grade National Chicle Skybirds, Goudey Circus puzzle complete set, R60 Gum Inc G-Men and Heroes of the Law and many, many more.

A trip to the Met…………

I spent spring break with the family in NYC and called ahead to see if I could get a viewing of the Burdick collection. It has become increasingly difficult to such an audience unless you’re a serious researcher or someone who has a particular reason to see the collection. In the past, a friend viewed the “E” cards in the collection and took photos of the pages in those Albums–Albums 315 and 316. Since I had those images, I thought I’d seek out some different ones. My initial request to the contact in the Prints and Drawings Room (the home of the Burdick collection) was to view the following books on the following days:

April 4th
2pm-430pm
Book #314 – E1-E137 cards
Book #315 – E137 – E286 cards
Book #537 – Album Cards W600, etc.

April 8th or 9th 
2pm – 430pm
Book #215 Goodwin – N172,171,174 cards
Book #227 – Book #230 Unclassified “N” Cards
Book #250 – T400-T499 cards

So after paring down my request to just the books she’d let me view, we settled on April 4th in the afternoon session from 2-4:30. I coaxed my wife and daughters to go to the Met and look around at the artwork–something they weren’t super jazzed about–while I spent 2.5 hours looking at cards. Something I WAS super jazzed about.

Throughout this process, I’d mentioned the visit on the BB board and Barry Sloate contacted me privately and told me he and his wife were planning to go to the Met to view a daguerrotype collection and he’d like to meet there. So we got to the Met early–around noon or so and met Barry and his wife Judy and walked through the Egyptian exhibits with them. It was great meeting Barry as I’d bought baseball cards from him 25-30 years ago and messaged back and forth on the BB board and posted in the same threads but had not met. That’s one of the interesting things about this hobby is how you can spend tons of money with someone or correspond with them and never meet. More on that subject in another post.

After our visit with Barry and Judy, Barry directed me upstairs to where the Prints and Drawings room would lead me to my quest…….

The unassuming door in the wall to where the largest card and ephemera collection on the face of the earth are housed…………

I knocked on the door about 20 minutes early and was buzzed in by my contact in the room. I was told that the appointment would begin promptly at 2pm, but I could fill out the paperwork I needed and then browse outside the room until that time. I did so on the paperwork and then hit the art galleries near the room to see some of the big dollar paintings I remembered from previous visits to the Met………Picasso, Monet and Cezanne…..in that order below………..

After a 10-15 minute viewing, I made my way back to my appointment and was re-buzzed into the inner sanctum of ephemera collecting…..

The five Albums I’d been approved to view were already loaded on a cart and ready for viewing. The room was probably a couple thousand square feet lined on all walls with reference books and other volumes. There were maybe 3-4 other people in the room looking through other collections and three workers. I met the main curator for the room, my contact, and another helper who switched out the books when I was looking at them.

I was allowed to take pictures of the book pages and of the room but not of any of the other patrons nor of the workers in the room. So I complied. The books were put on these foam wedges and the large piece of posterboard type paper was used to keep any of the cards from falling when the pages were turned. Most of the cards are completely adhered to the albums (UGH), but some are put in with a cloth tape that allows the back to be viewed. Generally one per type that has some type of back printing.

Having rekindled my collecting of the albumen-sepia actress cards, I settled on books 227-230 and book 250 which was the T400-T499 Tobacco War / American Tobacco book. I have a couple hundred photos from the albums that I took but am not allowed to really show them to anyone on any commercial type site, so it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to show them. You can see what a sample page of the N150 cards looked like in the picture above from the album shot.

In albums 227-230, there were some wonderful rarities in some of both the small and large actress cards. In addition, there were some very interesting chromolithographed cards like the Weissenger Our Flake Musical Instruments and Pilkington Flowers, etc. One of the more interesting things is that, although Burdick cataloged these cards in his American Card Catalog (ACC), in some cases, he didn’t even have a sample card of set’s he’d cataloged. In some cases he had 1-2 cards from a given set and in other cases, he had a good amount of cards. Generally, it ran with scarcity–meaning, he had a LOT of N245 Sweet Caporal cards but very few Alfred Pets cards.

I got through the four albums pretty quickly. Probably about an hour to hour and a half for those four. Then album 250 took about a half hour to view. It was the T400-T499 cards issued by American Tobacco, British American Tobacco (B.A.T.) and the overseas issues by Murai in Japan. These cards were mostly issued in the 1905-1910 (ish) timeframe and were used in advertising U.S. issues sold overseas. Many of the sets borrow images from U.S. 19th century sets and are highly colorful. Still other issues are completely different artwork and are very collectible. Most often, cards from these classifications are found overseas in the UK, Australia and Japan.

I was texting the family as I was in the room and the kids were getting a little restless, so my visit ended around 4pm as I wrapped up. The people governing this room are very professional and take the utmost care with what they’re entrusted with protecting. There are also likely other valuable collections there, but I’m not entirely sure they have a full understanding on the true value of Burdick’s collection–from a dollar perspective or from a perspective of how important to many of us this collection is. I find it a shame that it can’t be viewed by more people as Burdick likely intended when he put these cards into these albums.

I’ve read stories about trips to Burdick’s collection and have been fortunate to receive photos from the collection and can now view many of them on the Met’s website where they have digitized over 60,000 of the cards from the collection. In discussing the collection with the head curator, she told me that they would like to do the next phase of scanning but it would cost about $150,000 to get that done. The first phase of scanning was completed through a grant that was given specifically for digitizing the Burdick collection. I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to view what I did get to view and hope that some day, I get another opportunity to see some more.

As a reminder, the Burdick collection outline of all the albums and their contents is located on this site at the following link:

https://www.vintagenonsports.com/resources/BURDICKINVENTORY.pdf

I politely asked the assistant who was switching out albums for me if I could view the room that held all the albums and she smiled and quickly said “no”. My visit complete, I packed up my phone full of pictures and my backpack and headed back down to the main lobby to find my family……….

464…….

Up to 464 items in the January 17-27 auction. Thanks to everyone for the consignments and trusting me to get this up and running. Hoping to have another auction in June 2019 if not before. Up to about 100 items for that auction already. If you have anything from one lot to a complete collection, let me know!

Smokin!

When you think of Natural Leaf…..you may think of the above.  Or….you may think of the T68 Men and Heroes of History set variation back for Natural Leaf Scrap Tobacco.  They would both be very popular right now…..

A couple recent auctions on eBay closed with each one having 45+ T68 cards in them–most of which were Natural Leaf Scrap backs–for over $800 and $1000 each.  They’re pictured below…..

The Natural Leaf Scrap backs are very, very tough backs and are rarely found more than 1-2 at a time, so to find two lots comprising nearly a complete set of 100 cards is a rare opportunity for someone to boost their holdings.  And someone took that opportunity…..

The same bidder won both lots and there were 4 different bidders on the $800 lot above $350 but only one underbidder on the $1000 lot that bid $999 to push it to the winning bid.  That underbidder did not bid on the $800 lot.  At least at any higher level.  

Back variation collecting–especially TOUGH back variation collecting seems to have spilled from the T206 minions over to the nonsports world.  While there are dozens (or more) back collectors of tough baseball cards, the nonsports world seems to be growing those collectors to a certain extent.  With typically smaller sets in nonsports cards and the ability to buy a tough back for a fraction of what an UZIT baseball back would cost, this trend is bound to continue.  Sets like the T59 flags, T79 and T80 military and others that have tough back variations, along with sets with factory variations seem poised to continue the march upward…..

So this has to be a good sign for the nonsports card market……bid fast, bid furious back collectors!  

362….getting close!

Up to 362 items for the January 2017 auction. Consignments from 4-5 more people will get it up to about 425 lots. If you have anything to consign, the deadline can be extended but no later than 12/22. Thanks to all who have consigned!

We also do pinbacks, wrappers, unopened packs and boxes and more!  

#vna #nonsportscards #nonsportauction

320…….

Up to 320 lots in the January 17th auction.  If you haven’t contacted me about consignments yet, please do.  More room!  Have a few more things on the way and pushing towards 400.  Would love to have 500 but we may not hit that high water mark.  Consignment deadline (for now) is December 15th.  Thanks again for your faith in the process and the auction.

Original artwork in our January 17 auction…

Original artwork from any set is always tough to find and valuable.  To find original artwork from the 1930’s is next to impossible.  And to find original artwork from the seminal 1930’s R69 Horrors of War set is incredible!  Our January 17th auction will have original artwork for card #128 from the R69 Horrors of War set from Gum, Inc.  The card is titled “Chinese Universities Flee From War” and it’s sized the same as the original card and graded by PSA and noted that it is original artwork by Charles Steinbacher.  Our other piece of original artwork is from the R157 Uncle Sam set for card #73 titled “Streamlined Drill”.  It’s slightly larger than the card and on board with a glassine over it.  Both have glue on the backs, appearing to have been mounted at one time–maybe in an album or some type of storyboard.  Both will start at $250 and are, of course, one of a kind items.